translations Archives - Page 7 of 10 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

More Molinari, etc.

January 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Roderick Long has translated another pair of texts, both relating to Gustave de Molinari’s Soirées on the Rue Saint-Lazare: Charles Coquelin’s review of the work, and “Question of the Limits of State Action and Individual Action Discussed at the Society of Political Economy,” a summary of a related discussion, published in the Journal des Économistes. Roderick’s blog posts give useful context.

The Theory of Property, Chapter VIII

January 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Of the chapters from Proudhon’s The Theory of Property which have not yet appeared in translation, the first is the Introduction compiled by Proudhon’s friends, which surveyed his previous works; the third, fourth and fifth chapters amount to a summing up of Proudhon’s scattered thoughts on the varieties of property, legal opinions on the subject, and the history of property. All of these contain interesting material, including the data on which the New Theory was constructed. But arguably the most interesting of the remaining chapters are the seventh, which explains in some detail the “equilibration” of property, and the eighth, […]

2012 translation plans / an anarchist-communist children’s book from 1901

January 1, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m in the process of working out my 2012 plan of action, including which works I’m going to concentrate of translating. I’m collaborating with a colleague on some of Charles Fourier’s more entertaining writings, and will be serializing The Exploits of Ravachol in the “Gallery of Rogues,” but what I generally find is that I can only give one translation project so much attention in a given day or week, before the work gets dull and, more importantly, I don’t get a chance to process and internalize what I’ve learned from translating a given set of passages. If some of […]

Two new translations from “l’Almanach de la Question Sociale” for 1895

December 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been puttering away at translating some short items from one of the radical socialist almanacs available online. This evening, I’ve posted an article on “Worker Mortality,” by Paule Mink, and an obituary of Emile Digeon, the hero of the Narbonne Commune and theorist of “rational anarchism.” There are quite a number of other interesting items in the Almanach de la Question Sociale. I’m working on a letter about Louise Michel at the moment [now complete], and I’ll probably return to a couple of other items by Paule Mink and Louise Michel as time allows.

Letter of Henri Rochefort on Louise Michel

December 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Letter of Henri Rochefort on Louise Michel (1) Dieppe, July 6, 1883. My Dear Citizen Argyriadès, I have only known our friend aboard the warship that transported us to New Caledonia. But I know that during the siege she had heroically fait le coup de l’eu against the Prussians, under whose guns she went to gather the wounded. It is likely that none of those who condemned her could have accomplished such exploits. I have recounted before the court of assizes her devotion for her fellow deportees, to whom she gave even her coat and her socks, keeping for herself […]

A couple of historical gems

December 23, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

Roderick Long has posted a translation of a chapter from Gustave de Molinari’s 1893 work on “Labor-Exchanges.” I doubt anyone not already interested in Molinari’s work will be won over, but it’s a very interesting bit of that particular puzzle—and it’s good to see more of Molinari’s work in translation. Our understanding of all the players in anarchist/libertarian circles is enhanced by making more works available to more readers. Readers of French may be interested in P.-J. Proudhon’s review of the “Essai sur l’analyse physique des langues, ou Alphabet méthodique,” by Paul Ackermann, which Woodcock cites as Proudhon’s first published […]

Proudhon’s “Celebration of Sunday,” and other works-in-progress

December 10, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

You can see parts of three ongoing projects, as they appear, over on From the Libertarian Library. The most interesting is probably Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s The Celebration of Sunday, the book he wrote just before What is Property? It’s a very interesting read, with something to tell us about a number of aspects of Proudhon’s thought, and it’s something I’ve been puttering away at for several months. I have posted a translation of the first quarter of the book, which is relatively short, and expect to have the second major section, which takes us up to about the halfway point, typed […]

P.-J. Proudhon, The Celebration of Sunday — I

December 9, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE CELEBRATION OF SUNDAY [continued] I It is rare that a law can be well understood and appreciated at its true value, if we limit ourselves to considering it separately, and independent of the system to which it is linked: that is a principle of legislative critique which no one contests, and suffers hardly any exceptions. How is it that this rule has been so badly followed with regard to the laws of Moses, that no one has yet thought to present them in their totality? I would not exempt from this criticism even Mr. Pastoret himself, whose work on […]

P.-J. Proudhon, The Celebration of Sunday (continued)

December 9, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE CELEBRATION OF SUNDAY [Continued from Preface] _____ “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. “Six days shall thou labor, and do all thy work. “But the seventh day is the rest of the Lord: in it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: That is why the Eternal has hallowed and blessed the […]

P.-J. Proudhon, The Celebration of Sunday — Preface

December 9, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE CELEBRATION OF SUNDAY ______ PREFACE The celebrated Sir Francis Bacon was called the reformer of human reason for having replaced the syllogism with observation in the natural sciences; the philosophers, following his example, teach today that philosophy is a collection of observations and facts. But, certain thinkers have said to them, if truth and certainty exist in philosophy, they must also exist in the realm of politics: thus, there is a social science responsive to evidence, which is consequently the object of demonstration, not of art or authority, not, that is, of arbitrary will. This conclusion, so profound in […]